# Singing with Imagination #The Weapon of Love #The Christian Mentor
Good Morning Friends,
There is power in how we group our thoughts…how we imagine a better world…how we communicate in a more excellent way…how we help others to wield power. The proper order makes the recipe work. The focus today is about how people might communicate more effectively. It is a devotional not about me but for me for I do not always order things well. The world recognizes the need to order things. One of the more recent additions of how people do this is with hashtags…the sign of one’s index and middle fingers of one’s left hand crossed with the index and middle fingers of one’s right hand to indicate a compilation of thought on a particular subject. The Pound sign in front of a word or phrase like #Singing with Imagination #The Weapon of Love #The Christian Mentor.
Scripture: Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock.
1 Peter 5:3 (NRSV)
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If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 1 Peter 4:14 (NIV) As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17 (NIV) though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us. You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was toward you believers. As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12 (NRSV) Message: # Singing with Imagination. We were singing a Thomas H. Troeger anthem entitled Make Our Church One Joyful Choir last night at choir. Here are the words: Make our church one joyful choir on this glad and festive day and by song invoke the fire that invites our hearts to pray: shape us, Christ, to live and claim all it means to bear your name. Bend us low by song and prayer, low enough to lift the cross and to take the weight and bear love’s uncounted final cost. Shape us, Christ, to live and claim all it means to bear your name. Lift us up by song and prayer till the way we deal with loss and our acts and words of care trace the pattern of your cross: shape us, Christ, to bear your name. Bend us, lift us, make us strong, send us out with wind and fire, so the world may hear the song that we offer as your choir: shape us, Christ, to live and claim all it means to bear your name. Amen! I hope you appreciate the power and imagination of the writing. One of the main thoughts is about bearing the name of Christ. # Christian. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Hans Geiger, Marie Curie, Rudolf Diesel, Samuel Morse, and Louis Braille share something in common. They all invented or discovered something significant that bears their name. So too we who follow Christ bear His name. The term Christian, once directed at Jesus’ followers in scorn, was later embraced by them as a badge of honor, a mark of allegiance to Him. Peter urged the early believers not to be ashamed of suffering as a Christian. The true modern use of the word follows the same tradition. . . . The Christian is one who accepts, with all its implications, the lordship of Jesus Christ. # Mentoring. Although “mentoring” doesn’t appear in the Bible, Scripture does give us numerous examples of mentoring. Moses was mentored by his father-in-law Jethro, first as son-in-law and then as a leader (Exodus 18). The mentoring relationship between Eli and Samuel prepared Samuel for the tasks and responsibilities that were his after Eli’s death (1 Samuel 1–4). Jesus mentored His disciples (Luke 9), and both Barnabas and Paul excelled in mentoring (Acts 9–15). #The Weapon of Love. Pray we follow the example of Christ. Blessings, John Lawson |
Daily Devotionals 